“It seems as though he was down and out before I came up,” said Triona. “If you hadn’t I don’t [know] how I should have carried on,” she confessed. They walked down the wide, empty street. The moon shone high above them, the girl in her elegance, the man in his loose grey flannels and soft felt hat, an incongruous couple, save for their common air of alert youth. And while they walked she rapidly told her story. She had been to Percy’s with the usual crowd, Lydia Dawlish her nominal chaperone. The man, Edwin Mavenna, a city friend of Sydney Rooke, whom she had met a half a dozen times, had offered to drive her home in his waiting taxi. Tired, dependent for transport on Rooke and Lydia, who desired a further hour of the night club’s dismal jocundity, and angry with Bobby Quinton, who seemed to think that her ear had no other function than to listen to tales of sentimenti-financial woe, she had accepted. Half-way home she had begun to regret; three-quarters of the way she had been frightened. As they turned into Victoria Street she had managed to free her arm and wield the victorious slipper. “I’ll never go to that abominable place again as long as I live,” she cried. “I should, if I were you,” he said quietly. “Why?” “I’d go once or twice, at any rate. To show yourself independent of it. To prove to yourself that you’re not frightened of it.” “But I am frightened of it. On the outside it’s as respectable as Medlow Parish Church on Sunday. But below the surface there’s all sorts of hideousness—and I’m frightened.” “You’re not,” said he. “Things may startle you, infuriate you, put you off your equilibrium; but they don’t frighten you. They didn’t this evening. I’ve seen too many people frightened in my time not to know. You’re not that sort.” They had reached the door of the Mansions. She smiled at him, her gaiety returning. “You’re as comforting and consoling a Knight Errant as one could wish to meet. The damsel in distress is greatly beholden to you. But how the—whatever you like—you managed to time the rescue is beyond my comprehension.” “The stars guided me,” he replied, with an upward sweep of the hand. “Mortals have striven to comprehend them for thousands of years—but without success. I started out to wander about this great city—I often do for hours—I’m a born wanderer—with the vagabond’s aimlessness and trust in chance, or in the stars—and this time the stars brought me where it was decreed that I should be.” While he was speaking she had opened the door with her latchkey and now stood, shimmering white in the gloom of the entrance. She held out her hand. “I’m afraid I’ve been too much occupied in trying not to seem frightened and silly to thank you decently for what you’ve done. But I am grateful. You don’t know how grateful. I’ll have to tell you some other time.” “To-morrow?” he asked eagerly. She hesitated for a moment. “Yes, to-morrow,” she replied softly. “I shall be in all day. Goodnight.”